<
https://walledculture.org/new-zealand-is-about-to-commit-copyright-theft-the-real-kind/>
"When modern copyright was invented with the Statute of Anne in 1710, it
consisted of a bargain. In return for a time-limited, government-enforced
monopoly, creators agreed that their work would pass afterwards into what came
to be called the public domain – free for anyone to do anything with.
Whatever you might think of the original bargain, it is now demonstrably far
worse. In 1710, copyright’s monopoly lasted 14 years, with an additional 14
years if the creator was still alive at the end of that period. Today, in most
parts of the world, the monopoly lasts for the life of the creator plus 70
years. Typically, that is over a hundred years from the date of creation, far
longer than the modest 14 years of the Statute of Anne.
New Zealand is something of an outlier here. Its copyright term is life plus 50
years. That’s already a long time, but not long enough for the copyright
maximalists, who are always working towards their evident goal of perpetual
copyright. And it looks like they are going to notch up another victory, as a
blog post by Michael Wolfe on the Newsroom site explained last year. An
in-principle trade deal between New Zealand [and] the UK will see the former’s
copyright term of life plus 50 years become life plus 70 years. What’s
remarkable is that extending copyright makes no sense, and the New Zealand
government knows it"
Via Glyn Moody.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
